Nicole Solas: “I know that when they teach the children about Thanksgiving, they ask them what could’ve been done differently on Thanksgiving, which strikes me as a way to shame children for their American heritage.”
Tucker Carlson: "Well, of course it is. Of course it is. It's the way to make them hate the country."
To understand the lineage of FNC's Carlson, we can look to Father Coglin, Joe Pyne and other media figures from decades ago. For me, this exchange and Carlson's vile comment, brought to mind All in the Family, which -- while I wasn't a fan -- I was aware of during my college years.
A quick check via Google revealed (as I expected) that I wasn't the first person to connect Tucker Carlson and Archie Bunker. A senior fellow at Cato was probably not the first either, but Cato's link landed near the top of the search results.
Fox personalities can lie -- and Carlson's suggestion that classroom teachers seek to "make [students] hate the country" is a lie -- because they are part of the conservative entertainment complex. Last fall, when defending against a slander lawsuit, Fox's lawyers convinced a U.S. District Court that Carlson's words shouldn't be taken as factual.
From Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion:
This “general tenor” of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not “stating actual facts” about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary.” Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20-21; Levinsky’s, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 127 F.3d 122, 128 (1st Cir. 1997)). Fox persuasively argues, see Def Br. at 13-15, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer “arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism” about the statements he makes. 600 W. 115th Corp. v. Von Gutfeld, 80 N.Y.2d 130, 141, 603 N.E.2d 930, 936 (1992). Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson’s statements as “exaggeration,” “non-literal commentary,” or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same—the statements are not actionable.
I offer no dissent on the ruling in favor of the First Amendment. Consider, though, "any reasonable viewer" of programming at Fox. I'd like to think that viewers are in on the joke and know not to take Carlson's words literally. But hate is hate. It motivates. And, furthermore, public opinion surveys show that a majority of Republicans believe that Trump's 2020 loss was the result of illegal voting or election rigging. That persistent belief in the big lie speaks of the powerful influence of the conservative media universe and of Fox News Channel, its brightest star.